i'M Wearing Your Class Ring
by twowritehands
Summary: He saw the room was a mess of junk food wrappers, beer bottles, and clothes. He tilted the sleeping face on his bare chest up to have a look—and screamed. Seddie. Vegas. An attempt to avoid cliche with the most over done plot.


Disclaimer: iCarly belongs to other people

_A/N: It was so much fun when Freddie's life turned out to be like a Katy Perry song in iMelt Your Popsicle that a waking up in vegas seddie fic had to be given a go. Tried not to use the exact song lines or make it too cliché so read it and tell in a review if you think that was pulled off or not!_

Freddie woke with blonde strands of hair clinging to his eyelashes and a surprising amount of incredibly soft, incredibly bare, girl-skin pressed against him. He was completely naked, as was she, there wasn't so much as a sheet on the bed, and the lights were on displaying all of the nakedness to the world. This was new. Wait, the lights weren't on. The light was coming in from the wide-opened motel room windows. Ground floor. Where people pass by. Yep, there goes a guy.

The light was splitting Freddie's head open to the point where he really wasn't noticing the indecency of anything just yet. He looked around, found the room a mess of junk food wrappers, beer bottles, and clothes.

He tilted the sleeping face on his bare chest up to have a look and screamed.

Sam was ripped very painfully awake when she was shoved off the bed. She hit the carpet in a fall of naked limbs and Cheetos—an open bag of them had been upset in her fall.

"Sam, Geezuz!" he was screaming as he tripped out of the bed, fumbled around for his pants.

She sat up, holding her pounding head. Cheetos were tangled in her hair now. She blinked the blurriness from her eyes as best she could and saw that, strangely, her skin was marked on with—yes, permanent marker.

All over, too—and there was no semblance of a design, just random scribbles as if they were trying to fill her in like a picture in a coloring book.

"What happened?" she asked, the whole night before was a blur—she remembered laughing a lot and drinking—_so_ much drinking.

Her stomach rolled and she scrambled across the floor, just reaching the bathroom and the toilet in time. When she was finished, she felt better, though her head still hurt. She rinsed out her mouth, wrapped up in a towel, and stepped back out into the trashed motel room.

Freddie was pulling on his shirt. She came out in time to see that his body was well toned and tan—Sam vividly remembered kissing it all over—and the only traces of any marker on his skin was what had smudged off from her. He had smudges everywhere.

"Well," she said, barely suppressing a laugh, "I bet we had fun."

Freddie was standing with his hands in his hair, staring in horror at the scene around him as the previous night slowly came back to him in blurry pieces. He whirled on her, "You think this is a joke?"

"C'mon," she said, and her laugh was forced, "This is what you get for coming here."

"I can't remember a single thing," he said, sinking onto the bed. Sam found her cloths and practically a jar's worth of glitter rained down when she shook them out.

"C'mon lighten up. You've gotten drunk before."

"Not so drunk that I can't remember anything!"

"I can remember your Elvis impersonation," Sam said as the fuzzy memory came back.

Freddie frowned, remembering too. She smirked, but he didn't seem amused. His various cowlicks were going in every direction and his face was all screwed up and miserable looking—like he was at a funeral or something. He was looking at her face.

"What's your problem?" she snapped.

He pushed his hand through his hair, dropped it with a smack on his jeans. He sighed and said, wearily, "You have a face tattoo."

That took a moment to sink in.

"What?" she shrieked, running to the mirror in the bathroom.

Sam pushed her hair from her face as she leaned over the sink. The sapphire stone in Freddie's class ring winked at her from her ring finger, but she was currently too busy to wonder why she was wearing it. She was staring at the orange koi fish surrounded with blue water swirls that were down the left side of her face, its tail fin up on her temple, its face down beside her lips. The skin around it was puckered red and tender.

She screamed, picked up a metal tissue dispenser, broke the mirror with it, and whirled on Freddie, eyes that matched the water swirls on her face wide with horror and rage. Freddie nodded, swore with true talent that managed to impress Sam even with the weight of the situation.

She wanted to cry. But what was the point? Tattoos was permanent. Face tattoos, doubly so. She drew a deep, shaking breath and said, "No big deal."

His jaw dropped and he made a small noise of astonishment before ripping at his hair, "NO BIG DEAL?" he roared.

"My mom gets a tattoo once a year." Sam said, trying to pretend like her lip didn't quiver as she said it. Really. She wasn't going to cry about this.

"She'll be so proud you're following in her footsteps," Freddie said with more venom than she'd ever heard in his voice. It stung, and Sam had the sudden urge to slap him. With the hand that wore his ring.

Why was she wearing this? Holy chiz. She looked from the ring to Freddie. He was shifting through the trash on the floor, looking for his cell phone. She hid her hand before he could see.

"Let's just go," she grumbled shoving passed him to start looking for her wallet.

Freddie saw his on the beside-table and snatched it up before realizing that it wasn't his after all. He flipped it open and saw the license inside.

Gibby was smiling serenely from the photo.

"Sam, this is Gibby's wallet!" he cried.

She straightened from where she was kneeling in the floor, reaching under the bed. She spat her tangled hair from her lips and frowned, "Don't worry, I found Carly's."

"Carly's?"

Sam was wincing, "Oh, yeah," she said, "You didn't know I had them."

"What are you doing with them?" Freddie demanded.

"We couldn't gamble without money."

"YOU STOLD FROM OUR FRIENDS?" he shouted. She grabbed her head and cussed him for being too loud.

He saw the corner of his wallet peeking from under his jacket. He grabbed it and checked—empty of all cash and no sign of any credit cards. Gibby's was the same, as was Carly's he saw after he wrenched it from her grip.

"I'll pay them back if it takes the rest of my life."

"That's not the point, Sam!" Freddie cried.

"Okay, can we maybe fight about this later?" she asked.

Freddie was seething. Sam started plucking her clothes from the mess. "Let's just go home."

"Home?" he echoed, "And just how are we going to pay for that?" he waved the empty wallets. "We don't have the plane tickets to Seattle here—they're back in LA with the rest of our stuff!"

Sam swallowed, remembering that their party in LA had turned into a dare to drive out here to Vegas. They'd literally brought nothing but the clothes on their backs. She pushed all the air out of her nose and Freddie kicked at the wadded up sheets that were in the floor. "I can't believe you got me into this."

"Whatever!" she shot back, pissed by the dark and dirty look he was shooting her way, "It was your idea to come here!"

"I wanted to see the sights and have a just LITTLE fun—I didn't want _this_!" He motioned to the whole room, to himself, and to her. "It's trashed. We are now _broke_. You have a FACE TATTOO!"

"I KNOW I DO AND IT'S BECAUSE YOU DARED ME!" she screamed. She could remember it now. She saw it on his face that he could, too. But, typical Freddie, he blamed his dare on her. He wouldn't have done that if she wouldn't have did this, blah blah blah.

They argued on whose idea was what and the chain of events that had led to the little tattoo parlor. Freddie found the keys of the rental car and his shoes and stormed barefooted out to the parking lot.

He jerked open the driver's side door and let loose one last swear, adding, "I knew coming to Vegas with you was a bad idea! You are calling Carly and Gibby right now and explaining yourself. I'll bet they're worried sick—they'll have to cancel credit cards and go to the DMV and EVERYTHING!"

Sam rolled her eyes, "Relax, you called them last night." She didn't have a clear memory of that happening but she knew they'd had this conversation already. Freddie slid behind the wheel. Sam got in.

"Okay," Freddie breathed with sudden calm, pushing his hands through his hair. He checked seat positions, mirrors, and signals, before starting the car.

"We'll go back to LA," he said.

"No chiz," she barked. He grumbled at her through clenched teeth, and backed swiftly out of the parking space.

A few moments later they were on the interstate and tearing west. Freddie always tended to drive fast when he was pissed off. Sam thought it was kind of hot, but was in too much pain to care right now. They rode in absolute silence.

The car stopped working on a long stretch of desert road. It coasted to a stop, and Sam, still holding her head and trying to overcome her hangover, asked with surprising calm. "What is it?"

Freddie swore and smacked the steering wheel, mumbled something that sounded like, "howtabutteringice."

"What?" Sam asked.

"I said we're out of gas!" Freddie shouted. He'd cleaned up the language, but that was what she'd thought he said.

"I heard you!" Sam snapped, eyes flying open and flashing with rage. "How can you be so stupid?"

"Shut-up, Sam," he said in his most serious and angry voice. The stone in the ring on her finger was winking at him and pissing him off. "I am not in the mood!"

She didn't shut up. She never shut up. Their voices escalated beyond the lonely car on the lonely road, and drew the attention of the sparse dessert life sunning on the dusty rocks.

He grabbed his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm calling my mom."

"What?"

"We need help! She's probably still in LA. She wouldn't have left this morning without trying to call the hotel room first to talk to me. I wouldn't have answered so she'll be trying to knock the door down." Sure enough, the screen on his phone said 38 missed calls from Mom.

"It's sweet that you miss your mommy and all of that," Sam began, "but—"

"We're stuck here unless she can come get us or something!" Freddie cried.

Sam scoffed, "Tell her you're being a nub while you're at it." Even she was surprised by the high level of premature venom in her voice. She propped her elbow in the window and held her pounding head rather than look at him. She didn't understand what it was about this morning that was aggravating her so much right now.

His thumb hovered over the button to dial his mom, but then he lowered his phone, pressed on his eyes. "I can't call my mom."

"Why not?"

"Because it's LAME!" he barked. She agreed. He continued, "I'm an adult. I can handle this."

Sam rolled her eyes. Her head was pounding and her face was really starting to sting, and it was starting to hit home that she had a tattoo. On. Her. Face. Which she let account for the biting remark she shot him about his capability of handling anything. It may or may not have been an attack on his manhood.

He bristled, whirled on her with a red face. She rarely pissed him off to that degree. He shoved open the driver side door and got out of the car. She remained in the car for a moment. Her eye caught the ring on her finger and her stomach did a somersault. She'd forgotten to keep it hidden form him. She wondered if he'd seen it yet. She looked up to see Freddie storming away down the shoulder of the road. She decided she wasn't finished being mad at him about the face tattoo. She got out of the car.

Freddie had started walking with his thumb out—he would rather risk death by getting picked up by a serial killer than being stranded with Sam right now. She followed after him, refusing to let him just walk away from anything, since it was entirely his fault. He ignored her at first, pleading with every car that passed, but he never had been able to take her verbal abuse quietly before and now was no time for him to start.

So no one was stopping to pick up the angry man and woman who were screaming at each other.

Usually Carly mediated Freddie and Sam's fights, but without her the arguments had been known to last for hours. Before this, the record had been three consecutive hours debating the importance of ranch dressing, but counting from the moment the car ran out of gas and he'd hung up after calling a tow, they now held a new record: seven and half hours of fighting over the decision to go to Vegas in the first place, the gambling, the drinking, the face tattoo and her decision to rob her two best friends blind.

Neither mentioned the other thing—the class ring. It was too big to deal with right now.

The fight finally sizzled out. The end began when the words became useless and it turned physical. She pushed him and he pushed her back and forty-five minutes was lost in a wrestling match where she eventually made him eat sand and he ripped some of her hair out.

"OW!" she shrieked as he sat up, breathing heavily and coughing up the dirt. He dabbed at his split lip and shook the golden strands from his fingers in the other hand.

"Sorry," he hacked. He hadn't meant to actually hurt her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, nub," she spat. She was rubbing the tender spot and kicked more dirt at him before she saw that his lip was bleeding. She couldn't remember punching him. Her stomach dropped, weighed down by guilt. She hadn't meant to draw blood. Reluctantly, she asked, "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, you just made me bite my lip."

"Is it bad?" she sat beside him, leaned close to see it in the low evening light. He let her examine it and they both came to the soft spoken conclusion that he would be all right. She admitted that she hadn't meant for that to happen and he said he was sorry about pulling her hair out.

She'd gotten close to see the blood. She could smell the sweat and the dirt caked on the left side of his face, almost like a tattoo of his own, and the tangerine scent of the Altoids that they'd split for breakfast on his breath. As he drove furiously toward California, he'd popped open the tin can and handed it out to her. She'd taken her share. He'd dumped the rest in his mouth. They hadn't spoken.

He brushed the dirt form his face, dabbed at his lip again. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sheepish smile. She knew that smile well; the first thing to come after the end of every argument.

Suddenly her anger was gone, replaced by that overwhelming love she had for him that scared her and made her happy to be alive at the same time. She didn't realize she was crying until he reached out to catch the salty drops and wipe them away with his thumb.

"Oh, Sam," He put his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry I've been such an ass."

"You have been an ass," she said, and she hated how weak her voice sounded as it strained between sobs but his blame and shouting was the last thing she needed right now.

"Please don't cry," he begged. "I'm sorry. Geezuz. I can't believe I let our first official day together as husband and wife turn into this."

Her stomach dropped. She hadn't thought of it like that, but that was what it was, wasn't it? The wedding had been yesterday morning, the day following a busy one of friends and family and driving out here… Last night had been their private celebrations and this morning their first together married.

A silly girlish dream she hadn't even known she'd had about how first mornings were supposed to go crumbled and died. No wonder she'd felt so annoyed this morning, she must have realized subconsciously. But given a choice between perfect conjugal bliss and this? She'd take another crazy day with Freddie every time.

"It's not that," she said with a sniff.

"What?"

Her lips trembled and she sobbed, "I HAVE A TATTOO ON MY FACE!"

He laughed, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap. She cried into the safety of his neck for a while as he stroked her hair. His arms were so strong around her, his voice so soft in her ear as he murmured sweet nothings to her. He always made her feel so safe. Freddie was the only thing in the world that had ever felt this much like home.

"You know what?" he finally said, making her sit up so he could look at her. He rubbed the back of his forefinger down her new ink, "It's actually kind of pretty. It brings out your eyes."

She gave him a watery, trembling smile. He gave her a smile back, whispered, "I actually love it."

"Really?"

"It's bold and sexy and classic Sam."

She gave him a shove, "You don't have to lie to me."

"Seriously, it's growing on me," he said. She appreciated his effort, but she knew that he didn't like tattoos—especially face ones.

"No, it's fine." She said with a sniff, trying her best to get everything back under control. She stood and then pulled him up. They stood close, still holding hands. His expression was considerably softer and she remembered in a rush all the reasons why she married him.

He stepped away first, turning to beat the dirt from his clothes.

Dusting her hands, she rediscovered the class ring on her finger. She kept forgetting about it only to be reminded by a sharp glint of blue on her hand. She licked her thumb and cleaned it of the dust first and then shook the sand out of her hair and clothes.

"I guess it's time to talk about this," she said, motioning to it.

He sighed, looked at it with genuine pain on his face. He must have already remembered why she was wearing it as well. He swore. "I can't believe we sold off your rings—your engagement ring was my grandmother's!"

Sam tried to ignore the painful twist in her stomach as she remembered him offering it to her in the middle of a Seattle street. He'd caught her there after she'd run from him in a fight. It'd been raining, of course. She could recall how the gullies of water had streamed down his face, arching off his nose, getting in his mouth where he kept spitting it out as he told her that she'd made him tough enough to survive anything—even her leaving him—but he didn't want her to.

He didn't want her to leave.

She'd accepted the ring. He'd picked her up. She'd wrapped her legs around him. A car had slowed to a stop and laid on its horn because they'd been in the way as they made out there. Instead of moving, they'd fallen against the hood of the car, forgetting the world for a moment until the driver got out and chased them away.

Back in the present, Sam kicked herself. That ring had been her favorite thing ever—it'd looked so good on her hand. She vowed she would never get so drunk that she'd sell off something so precious. Not ever again.

"We got an amazing price for it, at least," she said with an empty attempt to see the positive side. It'd been enough to buy a little apartment.

"Yeah, which we then blew on craps," Freddie scoffed, in serious pain. He caught her eye—that tattoo was making them pop in the most spectacular way. She smirked. He couldn't help but smile, too. Sometimes people did things that were so stupid all they could do was laugh about it. This was one of those times.

Laughing, they closed the distance between them and he kissed her deeply, remembering all the reasons he'd married her. When he pushed his fingers into her hair, he broke the kiss and pulled out of the tangles at the base of her neck—a small orange thing. He held it in finger and thumb in the space between them. Her blue eyes, unfocused and kind of droopy, stared at it for a moment, then lit with recognition.

It was a Cheetos.

Sam ate it, and they dissolved into laughter and more kisses.

"Splatter-cakes," he said, breaking the kisses and taking her hands, "I'm such an IDIOT! We should have stayed in LA." Sam agreed. She would have enjoyed their planned honeymoon on the beach, but he'd turned his suggestion to go to Vegas into a kind of dare and mama never backed out of a dare.

So instead of doing what husband and wife were supposed to do when the wedding was over and the guests went home, they'd gone back to the honeymoon suite of the hotel back in LA, and before they got a single button undone had somehow gotten into an argument, which had somehow led to Freddie declaring that they should just drive out here to Vegas.

"I don't know why I talked you into coming out here." Freddie continued, closing his eyes with the weight of regret.

"You didn't have to talk me into anything," she said.

"Had to talk you into marrying me," he said, that sideways smile coming back and making her stomach flop. God, she was glad he was all hers and no one else's.

"Still not sure how it's working out," she said, with a look around to indicate their predicament. Stranded in the desert with no money, with hangovers, and a face tattoo. Not to mention they'd been at each other's throats from the moment they woke up on their first morning together.

He laughed, "It'll only get better."

She bit her lip as she looked up at him. He sincerely meant it, just as he had when he'd declared in front of a priest, his mother, and a hundred of their family and friends that yes, he did take her for his wife, until death did they part. He'd been so sexy in his tux.

She kissed him, deeply, and broke it to say, "At least we agree on that."

Then the thunder of a big rig motor down-shifted and Sam whirled to see the tow truck pulling up. She came to life, rolled onto her toes briefly like a little dancer. She jumped into the air triumphantly and turned to him, "Freddie, come on!"

There was not enough room in the cab for three people. Sam sat in Freddie lap in the passenger seat. They were alone in the cab for a while as the man got the car up onto the back of his truck. Sam curled up in his lap, and he sensed in her the misery that came from the stinging reminder of her face tattoo. Only that could reduce her to this level of vulnerability.

Something occurred to him and he began laughing.

"What?" Sam asked him.

"Nothing," Freddie said, trying to kill the smile digging into his cheeks. They were so close in the seat that when they turned to face each other, their noses brushed, and he answered in the default tone of intimacy that comes from such close proximity, "Just remembering that your tattoo isn't permanent."

"What?" she cried. His eyes were sparkling mischievously, and he squeezed her as he recalled that she'd made him get a fake tattoo of her face once, with all the pain of a real one and hadn't told him it would fade away and that he'd gotten the idea to finally get her back for it and all it'd taken was a twenty discreetly placed in the tattoos artist's hand.

Sam laughed hysterically, and Freddie joined her.

"Payback, Benson!" he said when he'd caught his breath. She stopped laughing with a hiccup and smiled, kissed him and said, "I love that you called me Benson."

He lifted an eyebrow in one of his nubby bedroom looks, "Well that's what you are from now on."

Yes she was. She sighed contently and snuggled back against him, feeling infinitely better now that she knew the tattoo wasn't forever. She'd been afraid he'd eventually divorce her for it or something. She yawned and her stomach growled. Freddie's answered it.

Freddie wondered when the last meal they'd eaten had been and realized it would have been at the wedding reception back in LA yesterday morning. Since then they'd had nothing but booze and junk food. He could recall now that after they'd lost all of their money, they'd gone back to the motel and simply had a good time staying in together with six packs, fat cakes and a marker.

She had her eyes closed, one hand up resting on his chest. He looked at the scribbles up and down her arms and all over her body. He recalled kissing all of them. He'd drunkenly been attempting to kiss every inch of her body, marking where he'd been. She had marks everywhere.

"I guess this honeymoon wasn't all bad," he said.

She agreed, but held out her hand as if to admire the class ring on her finger, "But what about my rings and all of that money?"

Financially they were in deep chiz. They had to pay Carly and Gibby back somehow—and their wedding hadn't been cheap to begin with, and any half conceived notions that they'd had of the antique ring on Sam's finger being a back-up plan for financial emergencies was gone with a single roll of dice.

He sighed heavily, kissed her ear, "It's only money," he said, "I'd rather have you."

_A/N: So yeah, an attempt to stay away from Cliché Waking Up in Vegas by making the married thing not the real problem. What do you think? Was it lame?_

**check this out if you want to read more cool stories: .net/s/7043903/1/An_invitation_from_The_Cabal **


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